Rug Doctor vs Professional Carpet Cleaning Equipment
What is better choice? Renting Rug Doctor and do job by yourself or hire professional carpet cleaning service? These are common questions for someone who has stains on his carpet and needs to remove it somehow. And the answer is… it depends. It depends on your budget and on your expected result. If you have low budget and low expectations, then Rug Doctor is the way to go. On other hand, if you have high expectations, than there is a high chance that Rug Doctor might disappoint you and in my following points I will try to explain why I think so.
1. Water temperature
You fill Rug Doctor with hot water from your faucet. The temperature on your hot water heater is set anywhere between 120°F to 140°F . At A&K Carpet Cleaning our track mount machine can generate up to 240 °F. Study shows that speed of a chemical reaction doubles for every 10 degrees celsius increase in temperature.
2. Chemicals
With Rug Doctor you pour the chemical into the hot water and then apply it on carpet while cleaning and vacuum it right back into the machine. The chemical has only few seconds to work on stains before it rinsed back into the machine.
When A&K Carpet Cleaning or other professional carpet cleaning company applies the cleaning chemicals we use professional power sprayer and we let it sit on the carpet for about 15 minutes before start rinsing it. It is very important to give dwell time (the amount of time that a surface must remain wet to allow the chemical to be in contact with the organism in order to kill it).
3. Ph level
Ph is a measure of acidity or alkalinity of water soluble substances.
When cleaning acidic soils, which are the most common type of soils, it is recommended to use an alkaline detergent. In case with Rug Doctor, there may be considerable amounts of alkaline detergent left in the carpet after cleaning which result in quick resoiling because the chemical residue acts as a magnet, drawing soil into the fibers.
Professional carpet cleaning company would rinse alkaline detergent with acid based cleaning product at the end, which would put Ph level to neutral.
4. Suction power, residue and drying time
Rug Doctors t has suction power of around 80CFM (Cubic Feet of Air Per Minute). Standard professional truck mount has around 175CFM to over 350CFM. At A&K Carpet Cleaning we use equipment that moves up to 455CFM! Low suction power can cause leaving dirt, water and chemicals behind in your carpet that will later attract more dirt. On top of that the drying time could be huge disappointing when using Rug Doctor. Professional carpet cleaning company can guarantee drying time with hours while it can take days for carpet to dry after Rug Doctor or similar machines.
